


Hearts And Arrows

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: But Why Did I Write This Cutesy Thing, Moirallegiance, Other, Other Things That Are Good, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-22
Updated: 2011-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kanaya had always wanted to be a rainbow drinker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts And Arrows

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this well before Vampnaya became canon, but never posted it on AO3 before because I wasn't happy with it. Still, some people seemed to enjoy it so... here you are.

This is all his own fault for falling asleep in the lab. He had tried to keep vigil for his friends, but the rage and exhaustion had overcome him, and he dozed off on the floor. He dreamt restlessly of wriggling tentacular masses and grinning beaked maws and, if he was very lucky, he saw Kanaya and Feferi perish over and over again, waves of green and purple spilling into nebulae of dark abominations and cycling back again in slow motion.

He was woken by a soft, liquid sound, unidentifiable and almost inaudible, but infinitely disturbing. Sollux is still unconscious beside him, angular but warm, and most importantly, _breathing_. The sound continues, and he sits up as stealthily as he can, reaching for the comfortable weight of his sickle. As he looks around he feels a sudden jolt of horror, almost before he can process what he's seen. Kanaya and Feferi's bodies are missing.

He crawls out from under the desk, sickle clutched between his teeth, and tries not to grunt in disgust as he feels his hand skid on a slippery trail of liquid. Blood. The metallic smell is everywhere in the air, and here is a spattering of green, and here is a dark trail of purple across the floor, meandering as though some beast of prey has dragged Feferi away. The trail continues round behind a pillar, and he realises to his horror that this is the source of the strange noise, and that it is unmistakeably the sound of _feeding_.

He has never been so scared in his entire life. On the other hand, the longer he listens the more quickly the fear is replaced by boiling anger. At least two of his friends are dead, at least two are homicidal maniacs, his supposed girlfriend is probably off fawning over some dead human douchebag right now, and now he's got a hungry space monster to deal with? Fuck _that._

He storms round the corner with a snarl, brandishing his sickle in the most intimidating way he can manage. In retrospect, he should have given some thought to the fact that though both bodies are missing, the trail of blood was entirely magenta, because rather than some godawful clawed monstrosity, hunched over Feferi's corpse is-

" _Kanaya_? What in the ass-grabbing name of almighty fuck are you _doing_?"

"Karkat," she whispers. She looks hurt, but one look at those gentle eyes tells him something here is definitely, unquestionably, wrong beyond the telling of it. Her pupils are black and swollen and there is a magenta smear on her lower eyelid. Blood is streaked down her cheeks and her mouth is stained all over, as though she's been gorging on cherries. She gives him one long, apologetic look before dipping her neck again and lapping at the edge of the gaping hole in Feferi's torso.

"Oh my fucking god," says Karkat, his eyes widening. For a moment he can only stand there, his sickle held limply at his side. He isn't sure whether he wants to greet Kanaya joyfully or go and throw up quietly in a corner. After whole seconds of inaction, he settles for trying to pull her bodily away from Feferi. She surrenders her grip with little protest, her arms flailing weakly before she falls on top of him, bearing them both to the floor.

"S-sorry," she murmurs, gazing down at him with an expression halfway between stunned surprise and the anxiously apologetic Kanaya he knows so well.

"Oh, that's okay then," he says, "As long as you're sorry, I guess we can all laugh it off! Sorry Feferi, looks like I landed face-first on a major artery, haha whoops."

"Ha ha?" she says, head on one side.

"Yeah, ha fucking ha. Really hysterical how you died and everything, great- great fucking punchline, Fef's douchebag ex-boyfriend turning out to be a fucking murderous psychopath, I thought that was so funny, you don't even know. And Gamzee, well, he's just a laugh a minute, ha, ha, ha, honk, ohh, _god_..."

Karkat collapses on the floor, his body convulsing, racked with what might be either heaving sobs or hoarse-throated laughter.

"Please let me explain myself," she says, touching his shoulder lightly, "I can't say I know exactly what's happened to me - I just woke up and I was so terribly hungry, and..."

"And what? You thought _hey_ , that dead chick sure looks tasty, I guess I'll just go sink my fucking fangs in?"

"Um, sort of like that I guess," says Kanaya in a small voice, "She just... smelled... really good."

Karkat falls back to the tiles again, holding one arm over his face and howling. "She _smelled_ really good? She- and you don't know what's _happened_ to you? I thought you loved those fucking books. You're a rainbow-drinker, Kanaya, god help us all."

"Don't be ridiculous, Karkat," she says, sitting back and hugging her knees with a surprising amount of dignity for a girl streaked in royal purple from nose to breastbone. "Rainbow drinkers are mythological creatures."

"So are fucking _angels_ ," he says, "So are imps and basilisks. Magic was supposed to be fake, wasn't it? You know, that fake, non-functional, completely made-up wand you made for Eridan? Yeah?"

"Yes," says Kanaya, shuffling nervously, "I must concede I made a horrible mistake there."

"Haven't we all," says Karkat, before adding, "I mean, apart from me, I'm your glorious leader who never - you know, all that."

"Yes, I know," she says, "I would never even consider suggesting your fallibility, oh magnanimous one."

Karkat sits up and wipes his eyes on his sleeve, his composure restored and the dark circles round his eyes only slightly stained with tears.

"Well. What the fuck are we going to do with you."

Kanaya flinches a little. "It's all right, Karkat, I think I can probably keep control of myself. The initial ravening has faded. Believe me, I considered simply removing myself from the fray, but I thought the sudden evanescence of my corpse might cause more trouble than my continued presence in my current state, and also, I'm not entirely certain that I can actually, you know, die."

"What?" says Karkat, "Sorry, give me a moment to hack through that overgrown fucking wordthicket, are you telling me you thought about killing yourself?"

"Well you can't imagine I was awfully happy about being suddenly really, really keen on the idea of drinking Feferi's blood, can you?"

"Oh, god," says Karkat, pulling her towards him as though she is a particularly truculent sack of potatoes, and wrapping his arms around her shoulders in what may be the most ungainly hug she has ever experienced. "You stupid fucking undead moron."

"Karkat," she says after a moment, "I... I'm still a little hungry."

"You can't wait till Eridan gets back? Turn him into the Prince of fucking Snacks for you."

"It's quite urgent," she says, with an apologetic smile and a faint green blush of shame. "Maybe you ought to look away? If it's any consolation I - I don't think Feferi would mind awfully."

"Makes it more overwhelmingly disturbing, if anything," says Karkat, "I'm excited for you to drink my fluids, Kanaya! Glub fucking glub."

"There's no need to be crude," says Kanaya, "I will be very respectful. And it's better than hurting you or Sollux. I could never forgive myself if any of you came to harm." There's a note of genuine fear in her voice, and she seems to be worrying compulsively at her sleeve with one fang.

"Yeah, but I'm the leader, and I say nobody else is chewing on Fef," he says, and _why_ must his voice crack in the middle of such a ridiculous speech? "She - she's suffered enough, all right?"

"I'm not unaware of the indecency of the situation," says Kanaya. She tries to wipe the blood from her face, but there's a horrendous quantity already on her sleeves, and the pigment stains like a dye, criss-crossing her face in shades of berry-purple.

"Here," says Karkat, and reaches out to dab a particularly egregious streak from her nose. "You look like fucking Gamzee got caught in the rain or something." To his complete horror, she starts sniffling at his touch, and a green tear wells up and runs down her cheek. Oh dear god. Has he made two whole girls cry in the last hour? He really is a sterling fucking diplomat.

"It's OK, Karkat," she says, seeing the look on his face. She wipes her eyes and brings out her usual half-smile. "Just... please believe that I don't want to take anything more from Feferi than has already been taken, any more than you do."

"Well, shit," he says, "Look, just... fucking bite me, all right?"

"That's absurd," she says, "It's simply not an option. I wouldn't even know _how_ , and besides, the risks are too great."

"I'm not having you nibbling Sollux when I'm not around," he says, "Just do it. Least if I die I'm out of this fucking place."

She shakes her head vehemently, but he notices with some alarm that she is already leaning in towards him, her mouth slightly open, and two white fangs showing longer and sharper than before. He stares determinedly upwards, the possibility of eye contact in this moment striking him as the one thing that could make the situation any more awkward. He feels her lips brush against his neck in a way which is quite disconcertingly pleasant, before she pulls back suddenly.

"Are you certain that you are okay with this, Karkat?" she says, "It's just that you've gone silent."

"No, no, I'm fine, uh, aren't those ceiling tiles fucking fascinating, what a really interesting shade of oh my god this is really weird what are you doing - "

Karkat would never under any form of torture admit that he had, in fact, read and enjoyed certain of Kanaya's romance novels. Most of them glossed over the actual sensation of the bite of the smouldering rainbow-drinker heroine in a flourish of sugary metaphors, all of which now strikes him as complete barefaced bullshit. There are certainly no fireworks or blossoming flowers or beautiful sunsets in Karkat's mind. If nothing else, it is _extremely painful_ , and having Kanaya snuggled up so close would be embarrassing enough if she wasn't running her fingers through his hair in a manner that strikes him as, to say the least, inappropriate.

She pulls away after less than a minute, leaving Karkat feeling as though he may never move his neck again. She is smiling softly, and there is a rosebud stain of red on her lips. Karkat is about to say something about how it's strange that he used to worry so much about everyone finding out about his mutant blood, and how much things have changed, but before he can get the words out Kanaya is kissing him on the mouth.

She sighs gently and settles into his arms contentedly, and he almost doesn't have the heart to push her away, but the taste of his own blood is just too unsettling. Besides, he's never really kissed anyone like this before and he'd always kind of hoped that when the time came it would be Terezi. Not that anyone can ever know that.

"Kanaya," he says, shaking her by the shoulders, "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

She jumps back, blinking. "I-I do apologise," she squeaks, "I didn't mean anything by it, I don't know what I was doing, I, er... I am so sorry, this was completely inappropriate. You and Terezi are already-"

"Yeah, let me know if you've got any idea what's going on there," he says, "Like she's not all over that self-important human asshole like he's made of rainbows or whatever. But. Yeah."

"Shall we make an agreement to forget that this ever happened?" says Kanaya, her gaze fixed on what is evidently a particularly fascinating scrap of robotic debris.

"Already forgetting," he says, "I mean it's not like my feelings for you or whatever would even fall into that quadrant anyway, not that there's got to be a goddamn quadrant involved or anything, it only ever fucks things up more than they already are, I mean, look around us..."

"Karkat," she says quietly, gesturing at the ground beside him, "A matter for your consideration."

He glances down. Finger-painted in the dust on the floor-tile between their legs is a small pink diamond.

"I realise this isn't really the traditional sort of time to begin formulating conciliatory pairings, but I just thought, in case something terrible were to happen, I would be honoured-"

She looks up at him, biting her lip.

"You know what? I think once we get to the point where you're drinking my blood, you don't even have to ask," he says. She smiles, and for a second Karkat may almost be persuaded to admit the possibility that their miserable existence isn't quite so futile as all that.

 

* * *

"Did you draw that in my _blood_?"

"I had to improvise with the materials at hand."


End file.
